I know that casting Knock-knock on a tumbler will help increase earth skill for a magic user.

I believe that having a bard/rogue/gadgeteer fiddle with the tumblers does *not* increase lock/pick skill.

Does having a tank try to force the lock increase any skill?

Yes, messing with tumblers on a lock, successful or not, can raise the lockpick skill. I have done it many times, as I was trapped in the graveyard retro dungeon without high enough lockpick or magic skills to get out.

I do not know if forcing will increase any skill. I have never tried forcing a door. When my characters were low level, I never had much chance of forcing, and by the time my characters could force doors, my bard had decent lock picking skills.

I have to dissagree with you on the fiddling with tumblers. I have had my bard (at very early levels) playing with tumblers and have watched the skill improve even though I could not open the lock at the time. Because it takes a long time to improve the skill, I never spend the time just fiddling with the lock to improve the skill, but I have seen it done. Specifically, in the Upper Monastary, there are several boxes that can be opened and most of them have locks. One box has three tumblers while the others have two. My bard, being low in lock pick skills, spent a while trying to open the three pin, and improved his lock pick skill by two points. However, it was taking so long that I finally left, wasted a few monsters and leveled up before going back and opening it.

Knarfling

Fiddling with the tumblers does improve Locks skill. You have to do it long enough, and sometimes you'll see the rating go up (your percentage) while you're in process of clicking.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by GenXCub:
Fiddling with the tumblers does improve Locks skill. You have to do it long enough, and sometimes you'll see the rating go up (your percentage) while you're in process of clicking.<hr></blockquote>

Guess I was wrong :)

I had never seen any improvement, and had asked the question once before and got negative answers. It does make sense that a bard could improve by practicing on the tumblers. Inspecting lock traps improves things a lot faster though<G>.

My Gadgeteer has never been hurting for opening doors and chests though... he has about 50 in Locks, but combined with Knock Knock or Divine Trap, he's done fine with chests and doors. I don't really do any hardcore "lock practice" like inspecting chests a bunch of times... I mean cast a level 7 divine traps and you'll get by.